Photogrammetry vs. Prodim Proliner vs. Laser (Leica ETemplate)

So it is no surprise that this industry has a STEEP cost of entry. From the 5x10 CNC and tooling, to the 20HP vacuum table, to the actual process used to measure and layout a project you could find yourself north of $80,000 not including facilities. This is why my relationship with Rob (New England Powerboat) has been amazing, the CNC was built to build the substructure for a 40' mahogany runabout, similar to a Hackercraft, which leaves the CNC sitting idle most of the year.

For me, the choice for measurement systems was fairly clear, I did not want to have to invest $25k into measuring equipment (you *might* be able to find an old Proliner for ~$10k) when there is a fairly simple tool called photogrammetry that can be used and it more than accurate enough for what we are building.

The idea is simple, and if you've seen CSI, Dexter, NCIS or an actual crime scene you have probably seen it at work. The process starts by laying out a set of coded targets on your project. These targets have a VERY well defined shape and size, and the software is automatically configured to use these targets to create a scale picture of the "scene". In this case, the scene is the deck of the boat.

From there, the scene is imported into the software, which can then determine with mm accuracy the plane the pictures are on (in case there are multiple heights) as well as the scale and rotation of the actual object. You can accurately determine distances between targets (ala CSI) or literally begin draw on the pictures to create the actual shapes.

Once all of this is roughly laid out, it's onto Fusion 360, which is my platform of choice (and I think #1 used in the world) in order to fine tune the edges, fillet corners and start the design of the pattern to then feed to the CAM processor and Mach3. More on that later...

Software links:

https://www.photomodeler.com/pm-applications/manufacturing/

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/overview